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The war at home

He’s a Bosnian exile they are calling the new Nabokov, but Aleksandar Hemon’s fine memoir is about more than just one battle

Bryan Appleyard

March 3 2013, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

‘If i avoid writing about difficult stuff, what am I doing?’ Hermon, against the backdrop of a cemetery in Sarajevo (Fehim Demir/Ulf Andersen)

Professor Nikola Koljevic was an ideal teacher of literature. He was cool — he had played piano at jazz bars and the circus — and he was ­passionate. He taught his students to “unpack poems like Christmas presents” and was for­midably well read. Grateful for his tuition, Aleksandar Hemon called Koljevic at the end of his course at ­Sarajevo University. They met and walked along the river, “discussing literature and life as equals”. The ­professor put his hand on his former student’s shoulder. “He had,” writes Hemon, “flatteringly, crossed a border, and I did not want to undo the closeness.”

Soon afterwards, Koljevic became a leading member of the Serbian Democratic Party, the fascist organisation headed by Radovan Karadzic, who was, among other things, an…

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